England's Danny Williams celebrates his win against Adrian Leat to win gold in the mens 73kg Judo final, at the SECC during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 25, 2014. See PA story COMMONWEALTH Judo

England's Danny Williams celebrates with his gold medal after winning the mens 73kg Judo final, at the SECC during the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Friday July 25, 2014. See PA story COMMONWEALTH Judo. Photo c

Danny Williams hailed the job Anglia Ruskin University had done in helping him collect an extraordinary Commonwealth Games gold medal.

Williams, 25, who is doing a judo-specific sports coaching degree at the Cambridge institution, topped the podium for England after beating New Zealand’s Adrian Leat 10-0 on points in a hard-fought men’s under-73kg final in Glasgow.

But it came just a few days after he had been called up to represent his country after Ben Fletcher was ruled out with injury.

And Williams was keen to thank ARU for their backing as he put paid to Welsh judoka Connor Ireland, Northern Ireland’s Eoin Fleming and Jake Bensted en route to the final.

He said: “They’ve helped me a lot. I like doing a lot of personal reading and when I left school I was probably bright enough to carry on and do further education.

“I just never liked being told what to learn, so it was fairly hard for me to go back to that, but they’re so supportive at Anglia Ruskin.

“I’ve had so much time off for competing and training and I just hope they put up with me for the third year, so I owe thanks to them.”

Williams admitted his first thought was having a pint of Guinness to celebrate, having undergone a drastic diet to make the weight at short notice.

He said: “It feels incredible. I think the medal at the end of the day was just a bonus.

“The crowd was phenomenal. It could have been in England, everyone seemed to get behind it. Glasgow have put this on so well, so I’m really happy.

“I wasn’t anywhere near the weight in all honesty.

“It’s been a very hard six days. I don’t think people see that side of the sport – you don’t make weight, you don’t fight.

“You do a lot of exercise before breakfast, that really speeds up your metabolism for the rest of the day and my carbohydrate intake was almost zero.

“I was having one meal of carbs every three days, six tiny little saucepans of food a day, a lot of water up until the last couple of days before starting the dehydration process.”